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Timeline
Sunday 23 November:
John Key apologises to right-wing blogger Cameron Slater over the publication of an email that forced Justice Minister Judith Collins’ resignation.
Monday 24 November:
John Key and Cameron Slater exchange txt-messages regarding impending release of Cheryl Gwyn report. Slater claims Labour is trying to kill him;
Cameron Slater: gave it away to me…Goff leaked SIS report
John Key: It’s a joke isn’t it. They will attack Jason for talking to u and they break the confidentiality agreement. Classic lab.
Slater: Yup…I’m very angry over it…Goff is the one who leaked oravida stuff too.
Slater: They still have standard bloggers on staff
Slater: And Mccarten was involved in hack
Key: Hopefully it will all come out in time
Slater: I wish they would hurry up…they played the real dirty politics…even tried to kill me…I have evidence of.
Tuesday 25 November:
Key denies he had been in contact with Slater, after RadioLive reporter, Jessica Williams, asked John Key the following;
Jessica Williams: Have you spoken to Cameron Slater since this report came out yesterday night?
Mr Key: Well I haven’t spoken to him on the phone for months and months and months on end. He sent me a text one time but I can’t remember when that was.
Jessica Williams: Has he text you about this particular report?
My Key: No.
Wednesday 26 November:
Earlier in the day: MP for Wigram, Megan Woods asked John Key this question in Parliament;
Megan Woods: Did he have communications with Cameron Slater between the 23rd and 25th of November regarding the Chisholm inquiry or the Inspector General’s inquiry?
John Key: Mr Speaker no.
Late afternoon: A screen-shot of Cameron Slater messaging an unknown person ’emerges’, confirming that he had been txting John Key (Hat-tip Anthony Robbins on The Standard.)
Late evening: Key returned to Parliament later three hours after answering question to Ms Woods, to make a “correction“,
John Key: “On Monday the 24th of November, I received an unsolicited text message from Mr Slater with a reference to the IGIS [Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security] report. There was a very short exchange where I briefly acknowledged that text message.”
Later that night: Key’s Office released a transcript of the text exchange.
Thursday 27 November:
Key denies he was caught out lying over Slater’s txt-messages;
“No I haven’t been caught out. No absolutely not. I haven’t had a brain fade.“
“When the particular question was asked, there was quite a lot of noise in the House. If I’d heard the other bit, I’d have answered it fully.”
“Just to be clear, I never said the Labour Party were trying to kill me. That’s the spin the Labour Party have put on it this morning.”
“You’re now asking me, in a period of three months where I’ve dealt with an election campaign, where I probably deal with, I don’t know, a thousand text messages a day from hundreds and hundreds of people, you’re now telling me I have to remember exactly the number.”
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Preface
From an earlier blogpost, penned two and half years ago;
Slater is National’s “asset”, doing their ‘dirty work’ . When the National hierarchy does not want to dirty their own hands with mud – but still want to make public damaging information to embarress a political opponant – Slater is their go-to man.
Slater’s role in such nefarious activities is even more useful to National after Paula Bennett’s clumsy mis-handling of private information belonging to two solo-mothers, which she disclosed to the media. There is still a complaint pending against Bennett for abusing her position as Minister for Social Welfare.
Somewhere, sometime, a top National Party apparatchik would have instructed each and every minister and MP not to repeat Bennett’s mistake. S/he would have given firm instructions that releasing damaging information to discredit an opponant had to be done surreptitiously, using a Third Party.
That Third Party would be Slater.
That would give National “plausible deniability” when the sh*t hit the fan and fingers were pointed.
“Frankly Speaking“, 29 March 2012 (See: Born to rule )
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Past Prime Ministerial porkies and mendacities
To those on the Left or who have followed John Key’s career, his lies over his txt-messaging with Cameron Slater will come as no surprise. With regards to bending the truth; misleading by omission or exaggeration; or outright mendacity, Key has ‘form’.
One political commentator, using the pseudonym ‘BLiP’, has put together a list of lies from the Prime Minister that is eye-opening and deeply troubling. More could be added to that list, which is now over a year and a half old.
Some early instances of Key being ‘sprung’…
In February 2011, Key denied all knowledge of the National Government’s intention to buy 34 new BMW limousines for ministerial use. By 22 February, it was revealed that Key had actually signed the documents to authorise the purchase;
Prime Minister John Key signed four documents that referred to a deal to buy a fleet of luxury cars – and at least three other ministers were briefed, documents reveal.
Mr Key – who is responsible for Ministerial Services – says he was in the dark about the deal until a conversation with his driver two weeks ago. But an embarrassing paper trail, dating back to 2009, and issued yesterday by the Government shows there were a series of documents referencing the deal.
And in July last year his chief of staff Wayne Eagleson met the manager of VIP Transport Service, Geoff Knighton, to discuss the renewal of a contract with BMW to supply 34 new cars.
Mr Key said he was “not going to make excuses” and acknowledged “the matter should have been handled better by everybody, including myself”.
“The whole thing has been sloppy and frankly the public deserves better.”
Mr Key said Mr Eagleson could not recall the meeting, despite a series of emails between July 19 and 20. He has since apologised to Mr Key and offered to resign.
In March and April 2009, Mr Key and minister for internal affairs at the time Richard Worth signed off on three documents – drafts of the Department of Internal Affairs Statement of Intent – which referred to the fleet replacement. Then last March he signed off on another statement of intent which made two mentions of the new cars.
Mr Key said yesterday he had not read the documents.
In April 2011, Key was once again hot water over his propensity for mis-leading people.
Prime Minister John Key has done an about-face after denying he had a discussion with MediaWorks bosses before the Government decided to give the company a $43.3 million helping hand.
He has now admitted meeting then-MediaWorks boss Brent Impey two months before, when Mr Impey pressed his case for a scheme the Government initially turned down.
The scheme, announced in October 2009, allowed radio companies to spread payments on 20-year broadcasting licences over five years, instead of one lump-sum payment.
On Monday, in answer to written parliamentary questions, Mr Key said he had not had any discussions with MediaWorks, which owns TV3 and a network of radio stations.
But on Wednesday, he issued a correction, saying he “ran into Brent Impey at a social event [in August] where he briefly raised the issue”.
On 4 October 2011, Key’s credibility took another hammering over a dubious “Standard & Poors email”, when he made this astounding claim in the Parliamentary Debating Chamber,
“When Standard & Poor’s were giving a meeting in New Zealand about a month ago, what they did say was there was about a 30% chance we would be downgraded – that’s what happens when you’re on negative outlook. They did go on to say though, if there was a change of government, that downgrade would be much more likely.”
The comment was made under Parliamentary privilege.
Five days later, and after mounting media and political pressure, on 10 October, Key “explained” that the comments had come to him in an email, from an un-named “friend”. As questions swirled around the alleged comment by Standard & Poors, Key relented and released released the text of the email,
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Subsequently, Key held a press conference where he was grilled by journalists,
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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHJb1DB42rg&w=560&h=315]
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Key’s body language, tone, and expressions speak volumes whether or not he was being truthful. That “email” could easily have been written by any number of Key’s Beehive staffers, including National’s “black ops” man, Jason Ede.
Standard & Poors, though, had differing views on what really happened at the Auckland conference;
Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s has contradicted a claim by Prime Minister John Key that a credit downgrade would be more likely with a change of Government in New Zealand.
Mr Key was questioned in Parliament last week by Labour leader Phil Goff about the agency’s downgrading of New Zealand’s long-term foreign currency rating from AA+ to AA.
Mr Key claimed Standard and Poor’s had said at a meeting last month that “if there was a change of Government, that downgrade would be much more likely”.
The next election is on November 26.
Standard and Poor’s sovereign rating analyst Kyran Curry, who attended the meeting in Auckland, said that would not have happened.
“In Auckland last month, I might have talked about the importance of the Government maintaining a strong fiscal position in the medium term but I would never have touched on individual parties.
“It is something we just don’t do,” Mr Curry said. “We don’t rate political parties. We rate Governments.”
These are a few examples where Key’s willingness to be “loose with the truth” has come unstuck and become known to the public.
Little wonder then, that a Fairfax/Ipsos poll last year had nearly 59% of respondents not believing what Key said. Only 23.5% – National’s core-constituency – said they fully believed him.
Two years before that, a Fairfax Media-Research International Poll had similar results, with 34.9% of respondents replying that Key was more likely to “bend the truth” than then-Labour leader, Phil Goff, at 26%. A further 21.3% stated that both would “bend the truth – pushing Key’s results up to 56.2%.
He may be Mr Popular – but the majority don’t seem to trust him.
For good reason, it seems.
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Txt-Messages – the further undoing of a Prime Minister
Slater landed Key in the deep doo-doos by making public the txt-messages from Monday night. He knew full well that passing them on to another person (in this case another blogger, Josh Forman, of the so-called ‘Slightly Left of Centre‘ blog) would, in only a short matter of time, find their way to the media’s scrutiny.
This is especially the case when, as blogger Danyl Mclauchlan, from The Dim Post, recently reported, there seems to be a very strange and less-than-clear relationship between Forman and Cameron Slater. (See: The very odd Slightly Left of Centre)
Why did Slater release details of his conversation with Key, on Monday night, to Forman?
Why did Slater acknowledge his on-line conversation with an unknown person by confirming the validity of a screenshot of the exchange? (Especially as Slater has no hesitation to lie when it suits his agenda or to save his own backside.)
Why is Slater feeding the media on this issue?
What does he have to gain?
On 28 November, Political scientist Bryce Edwards made this astounding assertion on Radio NZ’s “Checkpoint”;
“It’s obvious that Cameron Slater has dirt on the Prime Minister. And that’s why he’s very vulnerable. He’s… I mean, I wouldn’t call it blackmail, but it’s like he’s leveraged by Cameron Slater, and he can’t escape him. I mean, it’s obvious that the Prime Minister would want to be saying ‘ef off Cameron, don’t talk to me again’, because he’s so toxic, but I understand Cameron Slater does have dirt on the Prime Minister and National and he’s talked about going nuclear in the past-“
So what is the ‘dirt’ that Slater has on National and John Key?
Plenty, I would hazard a guess. As Nicky Hager’s expose, ‘Dirty Politics‘ showed, Slater has been the recipient of much information from ministers such as Judith Collins, and has connections with other MPs.
Why would Slater “go nuclear” on National?
Slater has good reason (in his own mind and twisted worldview).
As Nicky Hager reported in his book, in this exchange between Collins and Slater;
Cameron Slater: he is a very silly man, because I could stop the people who are going against him. But now, he is just is going to get double.
Judith Collins: you know the rule. always reward with Double.
Cameron Slater: I learned the rule from you! Double it is.
Judith Collins: If you can’t be loved, then best to be feared.
When Judith Collins was forced to step down on 30 August, over allegations that she was “gunning” for Serious Fraud Office Director, Adam Feeley, her close friend, confidant, and political associate, Cameron Slater, did not react well;
“As Judith and I are friends, I am gutted for her. Judith Collins has now been taken down by death by a thousand cuts.”
Slater then made a comment which, in the light of current events, can only be described as a veiled threat; he referred to John Key as a “temporary Prime Minister”.
When asked what he would do about Collins’ forced resignation, he stated,
“I always give back double. Judith always gives back double.”
Slater’s deliberate, carefully planned, and cunningly executed scheme to “give back double” is being directed at “temporary Prime Minister”, John Key.
Slater is gunning for John Key.
Slater has not (yet) “gone nuclear” on National – but the unstable blogger is at DefCon 2 and the threat to Key’s administration is imminent. Irony of ironies, the greatest threat to this government has not been Nicky Hager; nor Kim Dotcom; nor the MSM; nor Labour or the Greens.
It is one of their own.
Further from my 2012 blogpost;
Using Third Parties such as Slater, to spread muck has it’s inherent dangers.
Eventually, the entanglements and the copious volumes of information at the hands of someone like Slater creates it’s own risks for his “handler(s)”. Slater will have considerable dirt on those who have leaked information to him. He will have to be “kept sweet”, to deny him cause to go rogue and threaten to disclose information embarrassing to those who have fed him material in the past.
“Frankly Speaking“, 29 March 2012 (See: Born to rule )
I should have bought a Lotto ticket at the time.
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References
Fairfax media: John Key says sorry to Whale Oil
NZ Herald: Cameron Slater – ‘I never said Labour Party were trying to kill me’
RadioLive: AUDIO – John Key denies contact with Cameron Slater
TV3: PM blames text gaffe on ‘noise’
Radio NZ: ‘Not fair on me’ – PM on text messages
Youtube: 26.11.14 – Question 4 – Dr Megan Woods to the Prime Minister
Cloudfront: Slater email
TVNZ: Dirty Politics saga – Andrew Little claims John Key ‘misled New Zealand’
Radio NZ: PM’s contact with blogger questioned
Fairfax Media: PM signed papers relating to BMWs
NZ Herald: S&P contradicts Key downgrade claim
NZ Herald: Key changes tack over meeting with broadcaster
Parliament: Question & Answer – Credit Rating Downgrade Effect on the Economy
Interest.co.nz: Key stands behind comment S&P more likely to downgrade Labour Govt
Youtube: John Key on S&P Labour criticism
Fairfax Media: John Key’s ‘believability’ low
Fairfax Media: John Key – Safe hands, forked tongue?
Blog: Slightly Left of Centre (cached)
Radio NZ: Checkpoint – Can the Prime Minister brush off latest controversy?
NZ Herald: Hager’s tell-all chapters
Fairfax Media: Judith Collins statement
Interest.co.nz: Judith Collins resigns after revelation of Slater email saying she was “gunning for Feeley”
Additional
NZ Herald: John Armstrong – National’s response not good enough
Previous related blogposts
“I dunno. I wasn’t told. I wasn’t there.”
The Mendacities of Mr Key #2: Secret Sources
The Mendacities of Mr Key #4: “Trolls & bottom-feeders”
When Karma caught up with Cameron Slater
Are Cameron Slater and Judith Collins bare-faced liars?
When the teflon is stripped away
Other Blogwriters
Imperator Fish: The Labour Party plot to kill Cameron Slater – the shocking evidence
Local Bodies: John Key’s Immoral Governance
Occasionally Erudite: Collins cleared; Slater lied
Occasionally Erudite: John Key implodes over the Gwyn report
No Right Turn: John Key’s TXTs and the Public Records Act
Polity: FFS
Porcupine Farm: Office of the Prime minister
Porcupine Farm: Key of the Day, 26/11/14
Public Address: Incomplete, inaccurate and misleading
Pundit: John Key: The buck doesn’t stop with me
The Daily Blog: Cam’s ‘Slightly Left of Centre’ sock puppet threatens Key in public
The Dim Post: The very odd Slightly Left of Centre
The Jackal: When will the PM take responsibility?
The Standard: An Honest Man?
The Standard: Only on Planet Key
The Standard: Key’s repeated reflexive lies (and giving back double)
The Standard: Textses
The Standard: Two lies in 20 seconds
The Standard: Two guilty approaches after Dirty Politics
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Hi,
You might not be surprised but I am. This guy is normally such a well oiled self promoting PR machine that the slips are hardly ever this obvious.
However, yeah I agree with you. Slater may well be Key and National’s biggest threat – and every time they go on telly and blame him for their screw ups (witness Michelle Boag on Henry last night) they back him into a corner. Lets hope he bites back double!
Cheers, Greg.
When the ex ‘4th estate’ is bought and paid for and almost ALL the TV news ‘reporters’ are clearly biased to the National parties view point (either because their job depends upon it, or their own person belief), a PM can absolutely lie to his back teeth and is 90+% assured he wont ‘get called out’.
I do hope these ‘reporters’ sleep well at night, KNOWING they are an integral part of the selling out of NZ to vested wealthy foreign interests who are using JK as their ‘glove puppet’ to enable them to take over this beautiful country.
Cameron Slater and Judith Collins might well be Keys downfall,Key is certainly rattled and not thinking very clearly.
When looking at Key we see a Pathological Liar, lies without thinking because its natural to him never to be put in wrong.
Narcissitic, abnormal love and admiration for himself,cant cope with any form of critisisim, passes any wrongdoing off by blaming others.
Sometimes mental age of 2yr old whos repetitive word is NO,stamps feet to get his own way. etc etc .brain fades maybe early onset of something.
Maybe we should feel sorry for Key with so many psychological problems, he could be genuinely sick ,his actions certainly are.
Key is frightened to upset Cameron Slater because he could cause his downfall, so lies about contact and keeps contact to keep Slater onside.
So maybe Slater is toying with Key with encouragement from Collins
both much smarter than Key.
So keen was Key to win the election he never thought ahead to the consequences of getting offside with two much smarter people,hes been checkmated.Lets hope the smart people bring out the info to stop Key before the SIS upgraded powers bill is signed and before TPP is enacted, the public would be appreciative.The public would then have look ahead to what the smart people would do together. Cross that bridge when we come to it .
Key obviously no intention of voiding the TPP ,the Herald never really covered the marches which in Auck alone was thousands strong, so he didn’t want the public to know too much.The SIS trick is to cover his arse and prevent people turning on him through fear of reprisals,
Key is trying to cover all his bases,Slater will be watched and his offices raided so hurry up Slater do your thing.
Buy that Lotto ticket Frank , this could be the beginning of the end for Key .
Slater is to Key what “the plumbers” were to Nixon . They (Nixon and Key) could well share a similar fate .
On August 8, 1974, Nixon became the only American president to resign the office.
Could this be John Key’s legacy ?
Elle,
Two smart people?
Perhaps the first and defiantly the last definition shown below but not the penultimate by a long shot.
1smart adjective \ˈsmärt\
: very good at learning or thinking about things
: showing intelligence or good judgment
: behaving or talking in a rude or impolite way : showing a lack of respect for someone
Ok Smarty ,this is a discussion site not an exam for english grammar, dictionary definition, Astute, Clever, Smarty is a Knowall. No offense intended.
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ELLE,
No offence taken, I was just trying to emphase the good points you made.
1000% Elle, & good effort Frank,
All financial traders are pathological lairs.
Like car sales, or insurance sales folk also are.
Politicians are a similar bred, so he was hand picked by the large global Corporates in N.Y. to do the dirt here in N.Z. for them.
That’s where Key got his training in lying, on the Foreign currency Trader floor of Merrill Lynch in NY, and being good at lying.
He was real popular to carry out this, the same way he is here as he sells us all out.
Thanks, Cleangreen. No doubt some in the MSM have taken note of the points raised by myself and BLiP… 😉
Who is BLip have I missed something ,?
Elle – BLiP is a long-time commenter on The Standard. This is one of his magnificent efforts: http://thestandard.org.nz/an-honest-man/ (And no, I’ve no idea who s/he is.)
Thanks Frank ,found it .
From ‘Green All Over’ (Trading & Betting Blog):
“Top traders have a lot in common with psychopaths, it turns out, and even outdo them when it comes to competitive behavior such as inordinate risk-taking and disregard for others in the pursuit of victory.
New research by a Swiss University studied 28 professional traders by putting them through computerized simulations. They compared the results with those of psychopaths, reports German magazine Speigel.
The result, said researchers at the University of St. Gallen, was shocking even to experts used to studying prisoners. Traders were more ego-driven and tended to take more risks than psychopaths who took the same test, they found.
It wasn’t enough to win, they said. Traders want others to lose — badly. “It was most important to the traders to get more than their opponents,” said Thomas Noll, who runs the Pöschwies prison near Zürich. “And they spent a lot of energy trying to damage their opponents.”
Imagine a neighbor has a car that is identical to yours, Noll told the magazine.
The stockbrokers did the equivalent of taking a baseball bat to the neighbor’s vehicle just to make their own look better by comparison.
Sticking it to the other guy is a trait apparently shared by the wealthy as well.
Separate research reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that wealthier people are more likely to lie, cheat, steal and otherwise behave unethically to get ahead, reports Bloomberg News.
In one test, 195 adults played a computer game that involved rolling dice to win $50. Since each person got the same results, researchers could tell when people were lying by the numbers they self-reported.
Folks earning more than $250,000 often lied to get the $50 prize, which surprised the researchers. They concluded that the perception among the rich is that greed is good, and that they feel insulated from the potential consequences of their actions, while poorer people more likely depend on their image in the community to get by.”
http://green-all-over.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/psychopathic.html
Slatter can embarrass key and national et al? Too right and there maybe more than a few crimes he knows about and has evidence of too. Just ask russell malcolm and graham mccready
If we had a law that potential leaders first undergo a test to ascertain if they are a sociopath, Key wouldn’t have got a job as as an overnight security guard. Glenn Greenwald was spot on when he spoke of Key using, “the most adolescent epithets imaginable.” And yesterday, did Key really say, “It’s not fair on me”? This really is an incredible playground-like scenario. So what happens now?
NZ’s MSM luminaries know they pissed a lot of people off by claiming black is white during the election campaign. That was the price of hegemony which is usually much more subtle. Those constraints no longer apply now that they have delivered another three years free reign for the power elite. We’ve already seen that they are now doing a better job of holding Key to account and they’d be looking beyond ridiculous if the weren’t. I’m from the UK and I believe that if David Cameron had been caught out lying in such a way and to such a degree he’d no longer be PM. If there are further developments next week and Key is forced to defend himself once more, he must surely be gone be Christmas.
Wow Frank, brilliant blog. Thank you so much for the time and effort you have put into researching these contentious issues.
I suspect Slater will turn feral on Key, who is looking more and more agitated in Parliament and at interviews. Something (or someone) is responsible for this and I’d wouldn’t mind betting it’s Mr WhaleOil himself, possibly blurting out subtle little hints about the damage he will inflict if Key continues publicly denying his association with him (Slater).
I’ve said this before, but it’s only a matter of time now, before Slater becomes unraveled and it won’t take much for that to become a reality. When that happens, the blogger will spill his guts on everything he has on the PM. This will be Key’s day of reckoning. It will also be the day of awakening for NZ. Bring it on.
Hi,
It’s just an odd thought late at night, but if Whale Oil is so dangerous to Key and thus could effectively destabalise the government – what are the chances that the SIS etc are now watching him?
Cheers, Greg.
Answer?…they are.
What business did Slater have in being the cheerleader for Israel, by the way?…apparently he writes glowing reports about their political/military escapades….
Is it possible that any foreign commentator endorsed by the Israeli govt will have their comments vetted by not only Israeli foreign policy analysts but American ones as well?
And with the five eyes spy network, …that that commentator will be screened regularly for loyalty and any signs of reneging / whistle blowing? ….In which case our SIS would need to be informed?
Doesn’t this ring a bell regards American oil interests and control of that region ?
Isn’t it strange that the topic of the ISGI report centers around Israelis’ in NZ?…and misuse of SIS official reports to discredit any serious opposition parties ?
And then there’s the ILLEGALITY carried out on a certain German/Finnish millionaire, – An over the top and ILLEGAL arrest , an ILLEGAL warrant , an ILLEGAL imprisonment, an ILLEGAL impounding and asset freeze , an ILLEGAL surveillance ….
And why?
Because THAT millionaire upset the Motion Picture Industry of Hollywood by being leaps ahead of them,…which so happens to draw up the blueprints for copyright laws which is then submitted to the equivalent of the Chambers of Commerce,…which then is ratified by Congress to be used in the policy’s and framework of the TTPA.
Then the FBI stepped in to add a charge to change it from a CIVIL case to a CRIMINAL case.
And lets not forget John XkeySCORE being caught out lying bout XkeySCORE…and threatening this country’s security by dragging out irrelevant SIS documents in record time to defend an indefensible lie about public surveillance…
And who was on board that jet airliner that snuck into this country in the early hours of the morning ?…..none other than the high ranking heads of security – NSA – of the USA.
Around the same time Ian Fletcher was selected by this ‘ prime minister’ – who later says he couldn’t recall contacting him. The meeting of all those party’s including our own security people….late at night….
And then the ILLEGAL arrest of that certain German / Finnish millionaire….
And now with the culmination of many of these events…we are now unofficially at war in the middle east….with the TTPA and latest ‘anti terror’ bill being literally rushed through , tied up with the five eye spy network , ….
For a sociopath like John XkeySCORE ,- this – IS the CUSP OF AN EXCITING FUTURE which he screamed about in the run up to the election.
Domination and entrapment.
He will be endorsed totally by the globalists who had groomed him , the PR machine of MSM and attack blogs to ensure he could carry out THEIR agenda unfettered.
This has NOTHING to do with domestic governance, -and EVERYTHING to do with global one world governance militarily and economically.
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